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He was Peter Benjamin Parker-Stark.
(Benjamin after his biological uncle, his parents wanted him to have that tie; Parker for the same reason. Stark after his adoptive father; Stark-Rogers seemed like a bit of a mouthful for the tiny bundle - like it didn’t quite fit.
Peter just because Peter was a nice name for the good and kind boy his parents were sure he was.)
He was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark, and he was three years old – that sweet spot, though, between three and four, so close to blowing out giant waxy birthday candles, both infuriatingly grown up and tiny small.
He was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark, and he had two daddies.
Somehow, the fact that he was the only one in his pre-k class with two daddies had sailed over his head; everybody had two daddies, didn’t they? He had Daddy, Tony, and Papa, Steve, and the fact that this wasn’t the norm amongst his classmates – that his tiny three-year-old friends didn’t trot home to two identical daddies – or, better yet, two identical Tony-and-Steves – was out of the realm of possibility. Not even meeting Ned’s mom and dad helped with that one; he still insisted Ned had a second dad somewhere because of course he did, why wouldn’t he?
He was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark, and like any other nearly-four-year-old boy, he had a quirk all of his own; specifically an odd little soft spot for giraffes.
Not just the plushie version that Daddy had plopped into his cot when he was first born but the humongous real giraffes at the local zoo that towered above him – the ones that not even a lift up on Papa’s shoulders made him reach. He liked to watch them on the television too – all sorts, any sort, not just Marty from Madagascar but the real knobble-kneed taller-than-anything-ever giraffes of the Sahara.
(For one particularly infuriating period he ate like a giraffe too; bending fully to the floor to peck off of his plate.
For fear of being hounded by the CPS – Tony could see the newspapers, ink-wet – ‘billionaire CEO Stark in GIRAFFE BOY terror! Tony had put a firm stop to that, side-eyed Steve, thought maybe they shouldn’t let him watch so many nature documentaries. It was cruel, decided Steve, he loved his nature documentaries, especially the giraffe related ones. So, if only to keep himself from pulling out his hair, Tony sat with Peter and Steve at 6 pm every evening and Peter, in between clumsy mouthfuls of cheesy pasta, got to watch his nature documentary. It was only when the giraffe moaned, spread her legs, and out popped a smaller, gooier looking version of herself that, hm, Tony reconsidered.
…Actually, no. That was a lie. Circle of life, yadda yadda, it was good for the kid to understand.
“Papa, did I plop out of your belly like that?” asked Peter innocently through a mouthful of pasta spirals.
It made sense to him. Why would it not? Maybe that was why Papa had a funny pokey-outie belly button, but Peter had an innie one. Papa just popped open his belly and out plopped a perfect, gooey, Peter.
Steve went a funny shade of white that Tony wasn’t sure he’d seen before; Tony spluttered into his coffee.
That was when he reconsidered.
“No, sweetie,” chuckled Steve.)
He was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark, and he knew where babies came from. Mommies grew them in their bellies like little flowers; the flower grew into a baby; then the baby came out. That was what Papa said. Peter liked to look at all the mommies when Daddy took him to run errands. If he looked really really hard, he swore he could see the little wispy flower petals growing out of their ears. “I can, Daddy!” he insisted.
Daddy chuckled. “Can you, sweetheart?”
Although this was a fascinating enough explanation of biology for a four-year-old, and Peter would never complain, Steve had failed to take into account just how sharp their little boy was. If it was only mommies who grew little teeny flower-babies then where was his mommy, exactly?
“Sometimes,” said Tony, cringing when Peter chirped this question loudly in the middle of shuffling through the long checkout line at Wal-Mart;
“...sometimes a mommy can’t help her little flower grow up into a big tall flower, so Daddies step in to help. Just like me and Papa did with you.”
He rushed his words, all too aware of every concerned or bemused eye on him; quite wanting to wilt away himself - if only out of embarrassment at the sickly sweet explanation Steve had thrown at their little boy that he was now having to parrot to an audience of tittering mothers - and the little boy who seemed, judging by the frown on his face, to have stared straight through it.
“Look!” he gasped, his thumbs digging into the small of Peter’s back as he led him through the line, “…Batman!” – and as Peter gasped and raced toward the glossy yellow-black comic with a picture of Batman on the cover, he had never been more thankful for a distraction.
“Yaa! Kapow!”
He was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark and he loved superheroes. He could happily race around the living room on rainy days, ‘kapow-kaboom’ing his way through imaginary foe after imaginary foe, the ever-energetic Robin to the imaginary Batman.
He liked the Batmobile. Daddy had a car that looked a bit like the Batmobile.
It was Peter’s favourite.
Papa had shown him Star Trek too, and that was also Peter’s favourite, even if it wasn’t very superhero-ey. He liked Spock, with his funny ears, and he liked the part where they said, “beam me up!” and went whooshing away. It had become part of Peter’s bedtime routine, when Daddy had scrubbed the soap suds out of his ears and got him buttoned into fresh pyjamas and it was time for Peter to go to bed, Daddy would stand on the stairs and whisper, 'beam me up!' and up, up, up they would go as quick as Daddy’s legs could carry them.
They weren’t as fast as Captain Kirk, though; they never were. That was because Captain Kirk teleported. 'Teleported' was a big fancy word that meant, ‘got there super duper quick, quicker than anything ever’, or at least that was what Daddy said.
…Try as he might he couldn’t really get the hang of this ‘teleportation’ thing.
Every Wednesday, Peter and the rest of his kindergarten class got to play in the park.
Peter ran; Peter wished; Peter stood on the spot and clenched his fists and thought very hard, but nothing made him teleport anywhere. His kindergarten teacher gently asked him if he had to potty, and he huffed and said no.
At pre-k, they did a lot of learning about families. Peter learned about himself; that – by now, you might have guessed – his name was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark – he was nearly four, he had big brown eyes and floppity hair, mouse-brown. His teacher told him to go home and to look at Daddy and to look at Papa and see which one he was most like, but Peter wasn’t sure. He certainly didn’t have the sticky-outy spiky hair on his chin like Daddy or Papa’s big blue eyes and Ken-doll blond hair.
Papa said he looked a little bit like both of them, and that was fine, but he sounded a little bit sad.
He was Peter Benjamin Parker Stark, and his daddies were superheroes. Really real ones, not like Batman which was just a cartoon, Daddy said.
(How they had kept it a secret for as long as they did, Steve didn’t know, but he was glad of it all the same.
He wished they could’ve kept it a secret from him for longer, actually – worried it’d give him nightmares - but Tony positively scoffed at the idea. ‘Superheroes for parents! It’s every little boy’s dream, Steve!’)
Peter knew they were really real superheroes because Daddy had let him see all of his suits, kept in special gleaming tubes, all glinting red and gold, and Papa’s shield, keeping him safe from all the bad guys. Peter was too small to wear a suit and wasn’t allowed to use Papa’s shield either-- but then Daddy had yanked a few arms and sped up the merchandising so, soon enough, Peter was kitted out in an Iron Man costume with Captain America’s shield, all creaky plastic, on his arm. He still played superheroes, but now, poor Batman was no match for Iron Man - and sad old Superman was outsmarted by Captain America’s shield.
…Maybe this was what his kindergarten teacher was talking about. Maybe Peter was secretly a superhero just like his Daddies, having inherited a myriad of super special skills. Daddy (well, Iron Man) could fly; maybe Peter could fly, too? And—and Papa, he was super strong and super fast, so maybe Peter was super fast too? He had these cool sneakers, with lights on the bottoms that lit up as he ran around, and whenever he got the sticky Velcro straps of those sneakers into place he swore he could feel himself running fast, faster still, faster than he ever had before.
“D’you think he really minds, y’know…?”
Tony sipped his mug of coffee and saw Steve sink into himself a bit. “Mind what?” he asked, in between watching television.
“Y’know.” Steve fidgeted. “Us.”
Tony’s mouth opened; Steve’s face creased. “Not… like that.” He fidgeted again. “I- I mean, with his kindergarten teacher—”
Tony scoffed. “One of these days I’m gonna put the fear of God into her…” he paused, sipping, “Singling him out like that.”
“And—and it’s just—well, what if he, he knows, you know? What if he realises he isn’t exactly like you or me?”
Steve’s brow crumpled. He looked down at Peter, fast asleep there on the couch next to him, curled in tight.
“You don’t think so?” Tony looked at Peter and smiled softly. No kid was ever going to be exactly like their parents, after all. “They always try to match you with a kid who’s similar, right?”
“I just… I don’t want him to feel sad about it, that’s all.” Steve carded his fingers through Peter’s mouse-fur hair and smiled as the little boy shifted around. “Anyway,” he murmured, “I’m gonna get him to bed!”
That was when Peter knew he was a superhero just like his Daddies, because he would fall asleep next to Papa or Daddy and wake up, magically teleported into his little bed by himself.
…Although wasn’t it funny that it only happened when he was asleep…?